Happy Fathers' Day - a Tribute to my Dad

Happy Fathers' Day to all you fathers out there. I started my memories of my Father yesterday morning with breakfast. Sometimes when we were small, Dad would make scrambled eggs and add in a can of salmon. I was not crazy about these eggs with salmon back then, as a child. I happened to have some salmon I had cooked and had some leftover, so I decided that after all this time, maybe I would actually LIKE scrambled eggs with salmon. I made it with Dad in my mind. Sorry, Dad, I still don't like that combination. Dad passed away in 2001, but his memory lives large.

My Scrambled Eggs with Salmon

Long ago, in our childhood in the '50s and '60s, Dad would sometimes make us

Dad in the Army

breakfasts on the weekend. He had learned to make omelets when in France during WWII. In his version of omelets, he would sometimes insert a bit of jelly in the middle for us children. While omelets were not my favorite way to eat eggs at the time (boy, has THAT ever changed!), we ate them and it was fun, because Dad made them, instead of Mom. Mom was a very good cook. She cooked day in and day out, and with the family expanding to seven children over the course of 1950 to 1963, she cooked an awful lot. Those were the days of having a full breakfast every morning, a lunch of often soup and sandwiches if at home, and a full dinner on the table when Dad got home from work. Having Dad at home to cook was not usual, as he was working, but sometimes he did on weekends, and it was usually inventive. Dad was innovative. 

Dad & Mom in 1948. Just Married

One Sunday when I was around 12 years old, Dad decided to try something out that he saw on a cereal package. At that time, along with the regular large pillow-shaped shredded wheat cereal, there was another kind that came in a round disk shape, about ½-inch thick or so (see them here, if you haven't seen them). The idea was to use this disk shaped shredded wheat cereal instead of bread to make French Toast. Dad was all about bacon and bacon grease, and this was his plan, to make scads of bacon and make the French Toast nearly deep fried in the bacon grease. 

Dad, Grillin' - summer 1962

Taking this all one step further, Dad decided to make this a breakfast picnic, and make everything out in the back yard, on the grill. We would eat at the picnic table there. 

Dad with Five Girls in 1960

Now, from this remove, I can look back at that scenario and really admire Mom. I know this was a huge undertaking for her. Though she would not be making the breakfast food, she was in charge of getting all the foods, utensils, pans, griddle, the table settings, condiments and everything else in order and out to the back yard (and then everything in reverse once breakfast was done, plus washing up!). Let me say that we had a very large back yard. This was not a situation where you walk out the back door and there is the table. At this point in time, the picnic table was waaaaaaay out back, requiring a significant amount to legwork to get there and back. I am sure that Mom thanked God for us children to do some of this legwork for her, but it was still a large undertaking, and while she may or may not have quibbled over this idea of Dad's, she did it.

Me & Dad, 1952

My Dad's love of innovation in the kitchen has inspired me to do the same in my life. Mom's good cooking gave all this a start, but it was Dad who always pushed the envelope as they knew it. Dad grew up on a farm. His love of planting things stayed with him all his life. As I mentioned, our back yard was large, and Dad had a significant part of it planted as a vegetable garden each year. He grew corn, beets, carrots, scallions, green peppers, beets, cabbage and many, many other things. Mom canned and froze vegetables all summer long. On one occasion, Dad planted eggplant. I don't think Dad or Mom liked it either, because he never planted it again, but at the time, they couldn't say that, if they expected us to eat it too. So I ate eggplant, and hated it. Thankfully that has changed. While it is not my #1 favorite vegetable, I do eat it.

When my sister Diana was in grade school, around 1965, she made a red and green felt bow tie. Dad was presented with this bow tie, and he faithfully wore it every Christmas after, right up to the last Christmas we had with him, in 2000. Dad never, ever lost his sense of humor. Dad could move us to sobs when he had to have a stern "talk" with us when we misbehaved (which was plenty often!). Dad never ever stopped wanting to learn new things, even after heart attacks and strokes, diabetes that impaired one eye severely. He kept endeavoring to learn new things on his computers and keep apprised of events. When email became the thing, he delighted in sending out emails to all of his children.

Dad making Stew, in 2001

Atlantis Launch from KSC

When quasi-digital cameras came into being, Dad bought a Sony Mavica around 1997 or 1998, using a small floppy disc for the photos. Once this happened, Dad took photos all the time and would email us these photos. Photos of foods he had made, served in a pretty setting of Mom's devising, such as Bean Soup (or "Ham Bone Soup" as they sometimes called it), or a stew of some kind. With fresh vegetables from the garden he and Mom always canned what they called "Stewed Tomatoes." I do not have their recipe, though it was a combination of tomatoes, onions, celery and possibly green peppers. The sauce was sweetened a bit. I came to like it very late in the game, and now I wish I had that recipe. But even with that, Dad was always tweaking. I recall his gigantic zucchini, and that he also added that to his Stewed Tomatoes recipe towards the end of his life.

Dad took photos of his flowers, animals that strayed into the garden, his garden veggies, space launches. Dad and Mom lived in Deltona, FL, about an hour away from Daytona beach. If there was a shuttle launch from Kennedy Space Center, Dad would do his utmost to get photos, such as this one here, taken possibly either 1997 or 2000. I do not have the exact date for this photo. Dad was sweet and kind, yet very no-nonsense. He was a wonderful father to seven children, always with time for us all. We love you!


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Delicious Maple Soy Salmon Appetizer

To start off, I want to say that first my sister told me she had tasted something like this at a Whole Foods Market. She had no recipe, but only told me they said it was salmon marinated in maple syrup and soy sauce. Then while we were conversing one evening, somewhere we found a recipe that sounded somewhat like the one she was describing. I wrote down the amounts. Yesterday, at last, I got a nice piece of salmon and thought, much like Tom Wilkinson in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, "This is the day!"

Pepper Crusted Maple Salmon

I followed the ingredients I had written down, but amazingly, or maybe not so amazingly, after looking online to see if I could actually credit someone, after viewing a dozen different recipes with tiny differences, none - quite - matched the one I had found months ago. There are a lot of variations. To start, I am not overly fond of salmon. I have to really be in the mood, and then I do enjoy it. This recipe intrigued me on a couple of points. I had a recipe for shrimp marinade; the absolute simplest of mixtures. It made the most divine shrimp I have ever had (find that recipe here). Considering how simple the marinade was for the shrimp (or scallops! equally as good if not better), I felt that maybe here was a new recipe, just as simple, to make salmon taste just as good. While the way my sister told me about was for the salmon served as little appetizer bites, I am absolutely certain it would work perfectly for nice salmon filets also.

While the recipe is simplicity itself, there are many little variations, as I noted while perusing the web. The addition of garlic to the marinade, and / or a little Asian sesame oil (the dark, toasted kind) both sound really lovely. These might be something to try the next time I get in a salmon mood. The recipe calls for marinating the salmon for 24 hours. Obviously this requires forethought. It also calls for a cup of maple syrup, so between the salmon and the syrup, the recipe is not inexpensive to make. But the outcome? Oh, so heavenly!

Yesterday after setting the salmon to marinate, I sat thinking that since I was going to be eating this all by myself (my husband will have nothing to do with anything fish or seafood), what might be a good thing to serve it with? I had some cole slaw in the fridge, and I am positive that would have been great.

 

Pepper Crusted Maple Salmon, with Beets and Horseradish to serve

Thinking on the sweet flavors in the marinade though, I thought about a little bit of my Beets with Horseradish leftover in the fridge. In my family, Beets with Horseradish is a traditionally Easter accompaniment for ham. Ham, often basted with sweet flavors seemed to be a similar concept to the sweet flavors of the salmon. In my mind, somehow, this just sounded really good together, so I had to try it out. Once I made the salmon, just a little bit ago, I tasted a bite or two just as is. It is absolutely, perfectly, decadently, insanely - good.  And then I got out the Beets with Horseradish and tried a bite with that. O - M - G! It was the perfect match! It came out tasting precisely as I thought it would. Despite the fact that maybe the color combo is not the best, the flavors were just perfect. The perfect accompaniment.

I had wondered also, what exactly would the marinade do to the salmon? When I pulled the salmon cubes out of the marinade this evening, the pieces were sort of candied-looking and just a little translucent. I felt this boded well for the outcome, and as it turned out, it did. While not overly sweet, "candied" seems an appropriate word. 

So this is the recipe as I made it. I am sure someone out there might say "that is my recipe". Maybe even many someones, because as I mentioned recently, it seems there is just no recipe under the sun that is really new. Remember to look for a piece of salmon that has some really good thickness, so decent sized cubes can be cut. The maple syrup can be the darker Grade B type. This is what I did:

Pepper Crusted Maple Salmon

24 ounces thick salmon filet
1 cup pure maple syrup
⅓ cup soy sauce (I used Lite)
¼ cup fresh ground cracked pepper

Combine the soy and syrup in a container with lid or a quart zip-top bag. If the salmon has skin on, remove the skin and cut the salmon into cube shapes at least 1 ½-inch x 1½-inch where possible. Place the cubes into the container with the marinade, making sure they are completely covered. This is easiest in the zip top bag, as all the air can be pressed out on sealing. Refrigerate the salmon for 24 hours, turning various times to ensure even coverage of the marinade.

When ready to bake, have ready a small bowl with the cracked pepper. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Cover a rimmed baking sheet with foil and spray the foil with cooking spray. Remove the salmon cubes from the marinade and dip one side of the salmon cube into the cracked pepper, then place it on the prepared baking sheet, pepper-side up. Bake the salmon for 3 to 4 minutes, as desired. Mine was done - even the largest pieces, at 3 minutes. Serve immediately.

           Salmon out of the marinade                     |          dipped in cracked pepper and ready to bake

If choosing to marinate individual serving sized filets instead of cubes, the timing might have to be slightly longer, but remove from the oven as soon as the fish will flake. This happens rapidly, so watch carefully.

May 3rd Update:

Arugula Salad with Pepper Crusted Maple Salmon flaked over top

As I was the only one eating the salmon last evening, there was obviously some left over. While all the recipes I read online said to eat immediately, I did wonder what it would be like reheated, or even cold. Well, let me just say that cold from the fridge was still stupendous. I had gotten a package of arugula, and thought I would have a salad with the cold salmon flaked over the greens. It flaked easily and beautifully. I added carrot, just because I like carrots! The salad with the cold fish was truly an amazing experience. So, if there is concern about leftovers, do try them on a salad. I don't think it would be possible to be disappointed! Another idea is to use it in a Nicoise style of salad, instead of tuna, and which I plan to try soon!



My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.